As seen on

Famed Economist Forecasts $20 Crude

The price of oil recently plunged to a 12-year low, triggering a panicked sell off for U.S. investors, the likes of which Wall Street hasn’t seen in years.

Now with Iran finally free of international sanctions and adding between 600,000 and one million barrels per day of production, the oil glut continues to put enormous downward pressure on the financial markets.

Dent is calling for oil to drop all the way down to $20 a barrel by 2017.

“Let me be clear,” Dent states, “Oil will not rise above $100 for the next decade or longer… and I continue to predict that it will fall to $10… That’s because much of the oil industry today is built upon a mirage.”

That mirage, of America as a leading oil producer will end soon says Dent. And the fact that it coincides with a crashing stock market could lead to disaster.

“As the world economy has slowed, oil production has ramped up. How could that not end badly?”

And he sees no light at the end of the tunnel for crude either, as his forecast calls for prices to drop even lower by the end of the decade.

Oil’s crash has hammered currencies from commodity-producing nations and spooked investors with intense worry about the health of the global economy.

To add to it all, U.S. energy stocks have been getting clobbered causing the S&P 500 and the Dow to continue to bleed.

But according to Dent, oil’s collapse is only one of several very dangerous issues facing the markets today.

And things are about to get worse – a lot worse.

“Let me warn you” says Dent in his latest report, “there is a “perfect storm” of economic and demographic realities brewing that will likely make this decade one of the most trying times in U.S. economic history.”